County Membership Report

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Essex County, Massachusetts

Denominational Groups, 2000

14,713 47,680 13,104 362,900 27,957 257,065
Evangelical Protestant Mainline Protestant Orthodox Catholic Other Unclaimed

Congregational "adherents" include all full members, their children, and others who regularly attend services. The historically African American denominations are not included in the 2000 congregation and membership totals. Many are also missing in 1990 and most historically African American denominations are missing in the 1980 reports.
[More information on the data sources]

Reports


Religious Bodies Theology Congregations Adherents % Change
American Baptist Churches in the USA Mainline Protestant -4 -1,385 -21.0%
Armenian Apostolic Church / Catholicossate of Cilicia Orthodox 0 +220 110.0%
Assemblies of God Evangelical Protestant +5 +1,211 64.0%
Baptist General Conference Evangelical Protestant 0 +158 65.0%
Catholic Church Catholic -13 +86,344 31.0%
Christian and Missionary Alliance, The Evangelical Protestant +2 +524 416.0%
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Mainline Protestant -2 -306 -86.0%
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) Evangelical Protestant +1 +178 94.0%
Church of God of Prophecy Evangelical Protestant +1 +64 n.a.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Other Theology +3 +549 62.0%
Church of the Nazarene Evangelical Protestant +2 +1,864 190.0%
Churches of Christ Evangelical Protestant 0 +25 13.0%
Congregational Christian Churches, Additional (not part of any national CCC body) Mainline Protestant +1 +649 n.a.
Conservative Baptist Association of America Evangelical Protestant +3 +400 n.a.
Conservative Congregational Christian Conference Evangelical Protestant +5 +1,247 168.0%
Episcopal Church Mainline Protestant -1 -9,292 -40.0%
Evangelical Covenant Church, The Evangelical Protestant 0 -63 -22.0%
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Mainline Protestant -1 -35 -2.0%
Free Methodist Church of North America Evangelical Protestant +6 +135 33.0%
Friends (Quakers) Mainline Protestant 0 +49 44.0%
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America Orthodox +6 +10,272 n.a.
Independent, Non-Charismatic Churches Evangelical Protestant +1 +300 n.a.
Jewish Estimate Other Theology +18 +16,662 331.0%
Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod Evangelical Protestant 0 -67 -11.0%
National Association of Congregational Christian Churches Mainline Protestant +1 -157 -44.0%
Orthodox Church in America: Territorial Dioceses Orthodox +1 +261 n.a.
Orthodox Presbyterian Church, The Evangelical Protestant +1 +384 388.0%
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Mainline Protestant -1 -590 -56.0%
Primitive Methodist Church in the USA Evangelical Protestant 0 -184 -60.0%
Salvation Army, The Evangelical Protestant +1 -1,337 -55.0%
Seventh-day Adventist Church Evangelical Protestant +2 +302 80.0%
Southern Baptist Convention Evangelical Protestant +6 +432 313.0%
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations Other Theology -1 -404 -13.0%
United Church of Christ Mainline Protestant -5 -4,142 -21.0%
United Methodist Church, The Mainline Protestant -5 -2,279 -21.0%
  Totals: 33 +101,989 +28.4%

The population of this county (or equivalent) in 1980 was 633,632; in 2000 it was 723,419. The total population changed 8.0%. The adherent totals for 1980 (359,924) represent 56.8% of the 1980 population. The adherent totals for 2000 (466,354) include 64.5% of the 2000 population. The totals represent the change in groups that reported in both 1980 and 2000 only. There is sufficient data for 35 groups to calculate 1980-2000 change. These 35 groups had 359,506 adherents in 1980 and 461,495 adherents in 2000, for a change of 28.4%

Sources

The 2000 data were collected by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) and includes statistics for 149 religious groups, including number of churches and adherents. Dale E. Jones, Sherri Doty, Clifford Grammich, James E. Horsch, Richard Houseal, Mac Lynn, John P. Marcum, Kenneth M. Sanchagrin and Richard H. Taylor supervised the collection. These data originally appeared in Religious Congregations & Membership in the United States, 2000, published by the Glenmary Research Center.

The 1980 data were collected by the Glenmary Research Center and include statistics for 111 Judeo-Christian church bodies, including number of churches and adherents. Bernard Quinn, Herman Anderson, Martin Bradley, Paul Goetting and Peggy Shriver supervised the collection. These data originally appeared in Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1980, published by the Glenmary Research Center.

[More information on these data sources]